Layne R. Meacham

Layne Richard Meacham was born in Murray, Utah in 1948. An abstract painter, he uses mixed media, oil, or acrylics to paint his large-scale canvases. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

As a young man, Meacham studied with David Chaplin. He also took classes at the Finch Lane Art Gallery from 1963 to 1967. He also studied at the Salt Lake Art Center, the University of Utah, and Westminster College where Don Doxey was one of his instructors (1973–74).

Meacham paints daily in his Sugarhouse studio. Reframing (2000) and Near Kanab Canyon (1994) are examples of his work. Seder (1991) is part of the Springville Museum of Art's permanent collection.

Layne R. Meacham of Salt Lake City, Utah is a mixed-media, abstract painter. He began studying art at his junior high school with David Chaplin (artist, educator, and former University professor) who also provided him with private classes. At that time he also took many classes at the Salt Lake Art Barn, now known as the Finch Lane Gallery. He then dropped out of public school to paint. In 1967 he went into the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam. After receiving the Bronze Star, he returned to Utah to pursue a degree. As an undergraduate he studied under Don Doxey at Westminster in Salt Lake City, doing still life and figure drawing. He also took classes at the University of Utah and the Salt Lake Art Center. While pursuing his Masters in social work at Columbia University, he attended classes at the Arts Student League in New York City. Due to family health concerns he transferred to the University of Utah where he continued to take art classes while completing his MSW. Meacham is now a licensed psychotherapist.

Layne likes to travel to glean ideas for new projects. He recently visited Bogota, Columbia and explored its rich, diverse landscape. Upon his return to Utah he displayed many colorful paintings at Finch Lane that documented his adventures in South America's Andean Mountains, and more particularly the handbill-ridden walls of Bogota that still have a resounding “Viva Che Vive.” His work is powerful enough and big enough to really cast a mood. And yet there is a quality of innocence to his work in juxtoposition to his difficult life experiences.

In regards to his latest adventure in Latin America and his show at the Finch Lane Gallery , Meacham says, “Since an early adolescence which was fraught with stress, my only real and complete redemption from the catastrophic consequences of boredom has been, and always will be, to make art. Of course I also do it for all the cliche classical psychological reasons: art-making acts as a release valve for neurosis and so on. Sublimation has always driven the process.” He went on to say that his work has evolved from the days of the old Art Barn in 1963, when he looked toward the masters and tried to imitate them. "I did great Deffebach/DeKooning/Olson/Snow knock-offs for years. Nowadays I hope that I don't mimic these art icons, however of course I appropriate from all of them and Picasso, Debeinkorn and Kandinsky as little as possible. I believe that I have evolved pretty much into a less derivative Meacham style which I try to keep as spontaneous, unplanned and immediate as possible.” Meacham hopes that his art will not be boring to those looking at it. He quotes Jean Dubuffet, the French painter, “Artists who bore us are just like those professional inventors who have never invented anything. It's unfortunate for them, the poor wretches, if they have wasted their lives studying and researching in their laboratories, without ever finding anything.”

However Meacham adds, “If the viewer is bored with my work, I was not bored making it!”

Excerpts taken from Robert Olpin's Utah Artists film series and book co authored with Siefert and Swanson, Utah Artists. Also from the Finch Lane Gallery Exhibition in 2005.

Courtesy of Artists of Utah and Layne Meaccham.

Art Education

1963-67 - Salt Lake Art Barn

1973-74 - Westminster College

1974-75 -Art Students League, New York City

1989 - University of Utah

1969-77 -Intermittent courses from David Sucec, Earl Jones and other courses at local art institutions

2002 -“Juxtapositions: The Artist and the Environment,“ Art Barn, curated by Hikmet Loe

Museums Permanent Collection

Marcia and John Price Museum of Fine Art, University of Utah , Salt Lake City , Utah

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum , Utah State University, Logan , Utah

Springville Museum of Art, Springville , Utah

Awards

Elected on of the hundred “Most Honored Artists of Utah.“ Selection panel was made up of representatives from the Utah Arts Council, the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, Utah art historians and the Springville Museum of Art.